The Mediterranean Sea Completely Disappeared. Here's Proof.

The Mediterranean Sea — nearly a million square miles of water — disappeared. Not metaphorically: geologists drilling into its floor in 1970 found solid rock salt where there should have been seafloor mud, the fingerprint of an entire sea evaporating down to almost nothing, more than once, over 600,000 years. It carved a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon into the exact spot the modern Nile flows today. And when the Atlantic finally broke back through, it refilled almost the entire basin in a flood some scientists consider the largest in the planet's geological history. Subscribe for more videos like this:    / @deepearthofficial   CHAPTERS 0:00 The Sea That Vanished 0:44 What Happened To The Mediterranean? 1:25 1970: The Ship That Found The Evidence 2:45 An Entire Sea, Confirmed Gone 3:43 The Strait Of Gibraltar Closes 5:05 Carving A Canyon Deeper Than The Grand Canyon 6:22 Six Percent Of The World's Salt 7:01 It Dried Up More Than Once 8:37 The Last Days Of The Crisis 9:34 The Zanclean Flood 11:45 A Sea That's Only 5 Million Years Old SOURCES & CREDITS Sound effects (all SoundBible, Attribution 3.0): camera shutter, drilling, waterfall, wooden thump — Mike Koenig; counting tick — DeepFrozenApps; blop — Mark DiAngelo; large waterfall — Daniel Simion Photo (Glomar Challenger): Wikimedia Commons (public domain) Photo (William B.F. Ryan): William B.F. Ryan (self-published) Photo (Wout Krijgsman): Simon George / IODP JRSO, Expedition 401 Photo (gypsum outcrop, Sicily): Kalima / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Photo (sediment core): Erin Winick Anthony / IODP JRSO, Expedition 401 Thumbnail photo (halite crystals): IvanSakhno / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0) Terrain: NASA Earth Observatory (Blue Marble: Next Generation); Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics; GEBCO bathymetry Music: original score #MessinianSalinityCrisis #MediterraneanSea #Geology